Don't Shoot the Messenger
by Zeff N Company
Summary: Death will come to him as it comes to all humans, but what mattered to him was the manner in which he intended to meet it.


I was there for Tifa's funeral. The service was brief, conducted by a friend and attended by friends. The sky itself cried for her sake, raining on the already gloomy parade. People were speaking for her; some carried bits of paper to read from if only to do it properly. There were those who cried, and there were those who did not. I knew for one that he did not, for I was right there beside him through it out. There in the back of the crowd of black, the only one not in a mourner's traditional black suit. He instead wore the same thing I'd seen him and would always see him wear.

He stood without an umbrella, and between his teeth was a cigarette. It was wet, dripping and soggy as he was, but he made no move to seek shelter or to light another one. He merely stood there beside me, his incisors pinching a wet stick of tobacco leaf bits rolled up within a paper cylinder. We never spoke, not so much as acknowledging one another. We just stood there, the both of us, looking on at the last courtesy left for the lady we both knew.

That fateful night, it could be said that he was the one to save her. It could also be said that he was the one to kill her. You had to be there, to look at the situation for yourself, to study it for all that it was worth and come up with your own conclusion.

And on that same night, I had done nothing to stop it.

When I think of it that way, I presume it makes us both equally guilty for our involvement – or lack thereof.

Time passes. Return to the present.

The place is the same, but everything else is different. There is no rain this time, and the sky is deceitfully bright blue. Nothing is bright about a place so steeped in corruption that even the visitors only shrug and pat their hidden "self-defense" weapons for additional reassurance – or good luck, whichever they prefer. And it is here, in this same location, that the last bright spot left in a city of compromise and apathy is the lightest gray.

I watch from my lofty position as the local pastor takes his leave. His wife is waiting for him, along with the two sons that he adopted nine years ago. He will go home, they will laugh and talk, they will sit together and forget that the world is ugly for a moment. He will continue with this warm way of life until the day he dies – a far, far away date from this present. He will have white hairs then and still be as active as ever with his grandchildren. That is his future.

Three youths with hoods over their heads stare at him from the shadows of an alley as he passes by. They let him – I knew they would even before I saw them. This is not how or when he dies; not today, and not through an act of violence. He is of the church, and if there is nothing that this gray city respects, it is their last shred of faith in a divine being. It is the only hope they have for tomorrow, and to attack a man that teaches for that hope is unthinkable. Besides, pastors are not paid very well, not enough to be worth the effort.

But I have digressed. This is not the story of a peaceful man who still holds onto his light with all that it is worth. This is not that kind of story. I turn away from him, back toward the grounds that he has taken leave from. I see the old church – a battered building that has seen every sort of repair and refurnish except a new coat of paint. I approach it. I enter.

As usual, _he_ is there, waiting for me.

The man this story is about is not the young white knight in shining armor with a legendary sword in hand. This man is the knave that turned away from his calling and his path, that misses his innocence as much as he loathes it. Nine years ago, he was clean-shaven and cherubic in the face, with a slender body of a boy on his way toward becoming a man. Now he is that man, and he has filled out. Broader shoulders, thicker arms, a body that is like a steel cable, toughened from surviving against his daily life within and outside his job. His scarred face now sports constant stubble, he let his hair grow out, and he looks older every day partly because of what he does and partly because of what he smokes.

The brown coat wrapped around his frame makes him appear stockier than he truly is, but there are distinct folds and wrinkles where his body does not fill the full space. Despite his still present muscle mass, I can tell by the slightest little things that he has not been eating enough, that he has been neglecting his health; though not enough to suggest he is malnourished or in need of an intervention just yet. Out of respect – what little left there is – he does not have anything lit; not as long as he is in here.

He stands now at the center of the church, between the altar's steps and the front pew. All about him are discarded pamphlets – from the carpet worn to threads by shoes and sandals, from the tiles stained by all sorts of beverage, from where they are wedged in the gaps between pews with their painted wood surfaces covered liberally in nicks and scratches carelessly made in passing. Most of the papers I catch at first glance are whole and mostly clean, save for the partial shoe prints.

He does not look my way, although I am certain he knows I am here. Instead I find myself listening to the soft tread of heavy boots on the carpet that he idly shifts his feet upon. I hear the creak of his coat, the softer scratches of his thin shirt and slacks beneath it. I finally approach him, and I know he hears each and every sound I make it turn. Still he does not look up, not yet.

"Hello, demon," he greets softly. He hides the hoarseness of his voice well, and it helps that he does not speak much outside my company anyhow. Yet, he does not hold back the slightest mocking in his tone, and I know what he refers to. Behind me, my lone wing of black arches as though taking offense.

"You were waiting to see me," I point out. He scoffs and turns around.

I see his eyes again. They were bright once, tinted with a blue glow that sparkled whenever he was in a particularly good mood – his way of smiling without using his lips. That spark is gone, and all I see is a deep, duller gray that is muted in its expression. There is much wisdom hidden within those depths, too much wisdom and too little innocence. He has not smiled in several years, neither one way nor the other.

And yet, just for me, the hard glass softens to something more human. He calls me a demon, but he sees me as _his_ demon. To him, I am some sort of hallucination that suggests he is going insane, although his constant conversations with me is what keeps him from losing his mind altogether. I am close to him, I can tell. He thinks of me as a part of him. For me alone, he is willing to let down his guard a little; just a little – it is as far as he would trust himself.

The eyes close for a moment as he huffs. "Even the figments of my own imagination aren't talkative," he mutters, and then his eyes open again and look to me. "I need a second opinion."

"You have another case?"

"No," he answers. His hand twitches, uncomfortable with the idea that there is no cigarette to handle. "I'm revisiting an old one. You ought to take interest in it."

"Oh?"

"The One Winged Angel."

I know that case well – it was the one where I was the most active. One man, for no reason anyone could grasp – none that he gave – suddenly started killing. No message, no speech, no face… nothing personal. None of the victims had anything in common, neither were they related by blood or involved in any particular event. The method was always the same: a single stab wound with a long thin blade, straight through the victim. The location he was partial toward was the very center, severing the diaphragm into two halves; his victim died from suffocation as a result. And while he left no coded message or fanciful words of philosophy behind, there was always the same mark in blood on the floor – an angel with only one wing.

It was this case that claimed two officers: one was Sergeant Cid Highwind, my current associate's former mentor. The other was Tifa's father.

When the serial killer took her father, she had been there. She was taken as well just for being there.

We are both guilty…

I hear a soft grunt, a flick of a cardboard box lid. At last he has given up with false pretenses and is seeking the new crutch he gave himself. He used to joke that his choice of brand was a homage to his old mentor. That is, when he used to joke at all. There is little amusement in him anymore, and even less faith in anything. The stick is back, but he does not light it. Not yet. That waits until he is outside.

"I have a lead," he explains. "A reliable one this time. The only problem is that it isn't exactly legal. Save that, I won't just catch the one who did it. I'll catch him red-handed."

I listen. I ask: "That has never stopped you in the past, so what do you need a second opinion for now?"

"I have to know if I should do this at all," he answers flatly. "If I go through with it, I will kill him."

It is sad that I know, for a fact, that he would. He no longer trusts the justice system – no one does. Many judges have their places here because they have one of two things: money and blackmail. Many more criminals get away for having those same things in abundance. If the One Winged Angel stood trial, he could easily walk away scot-free. He would know his next target, and this time take it personally.

"So what do you think?" he prompts. "Either choice I make, I won't walk away intact. I ignore it, I'm a bad cop. I go through with it, I'm a bad cop…" he stops, smirks mirthlessly as if just realizing something. "Who am I kidding? I'm talking to my own personal demon. What good cop has his own demon, huh?"

I huff, musing aloud: "You continue to question whether or not I truly exist."

"And do you, demon?" he asks thoughtfully. "Do you choose to only show yourself to select people, or is that decided by whoever sent you to haunt me and… and…"

He pauses. His eyes distance themselves. He remembers.

Time reverses. Retreat through the years of the past.

A house in Nibelheim. It was a dark, dark night with no moon. A man lay dead on the ground, a single thin slit in the center of his body and blood pooling under his still form. Under him was the blood mural of an angel with one wing. There was another man, holding a young woman upright by his tight, bruising grip on her lower jaw. His blade had moved, done terrible, painful damage to her unlike what he did to the man earlier. She was unexpected. She did not count. He would not tolerate witnesses.

He did not see me. She did. She always had.

She knew that I can see into the future, that I can see how someone dies, absolutely. I saw this death coming upon her. I did not warn her.

I did nothing to stop it.

Something smashed to pieces at the entrance – the lock. He came in, saw what was going on. His face contorted in fury, and he took a shot at the man with the bloody blade. A bullet embedded into the man's side as he dropped the woman, but he did not slow or stagger. The man escaped, and he ran in after him. He was too late to catch the killer, but he was in time to catch the young woman before she hit the ground.

That fateful night, it could be said that he was the one to save her.

He knelt over her, watching her struggle through the pain just to breathe. Waiting for her was nothing but a slow, agonizing death like this. Any attempt he could make to save her would only hurt her more. He was powerless to preserve her life. He knew he could do nothing to keep her living.

She was begging him with her eyes, with her moving lips that spoke in silence. He was listening to her plea, and he was troubled. He said nothing, promised nothing. Instead he reached forward, and the eyes that watched him – trusted him so – widened.

He ended her suffering.

It could also be said that he was the one to kill her.

The One Winged Angel struck twice that night, and now two bodies lay there beside his mark. He still knelt over the woman as his hand drew back again. Somewhere in the house, finally stirring after what had just transpired, a terrified baby started to cry.

He looked up at once, his head turned toward the source of that sound. His eyes were full of realization, of understanding… of regret.

It was from that moment that he started to see me, just as she did.

That night, he inherited all that she left behind.

Time passes. Return to the present.

He has stopped reliving the moment, but still his eyes are filled with the same emotions that were there back then. He shakes his head, dazed, and finally breaks for an escape outside. I follow him, I hear his lighter flick once, then twice. He lights his cigarette at last and draws in a deep breath. He calms.

"… Tell me something…" he speaks at last, around the now burning cigarette, "can you still hear her?"

I shake my head, then I answer: "My power is not like that. I may see death, but I do not hear the dead."

"That's not very useful," he mutters, finally reaching up to move the stick out of the way if only to exhale. The stick returns. "Especially since you don't intervene."

"It is not my place to intervene," I explain in words. Still, I wonder if he understands how fruitless it is to prevent what is destined to happen regardless of change. I wonder if he knows how, if a man knew how exactly he would die, his own desperate actions would ultimately still lead him toward that same death. The result is the same, although the path taken can differ.

He draws again, mutters to himself. He checks his watch. The cigarette comes down, held between two fingers as his arm is slack by his side.

"Then pretend you're human for a second," he continues, "and tell me: do you think she blames me?"

I pause. I don't know what to say that is closer to the truth. I only know to say what he would like to hear.

"If Tifa could see how well you have raised her child," I say, "she would thank you."

"For killing her and taking her place in that kid's life?" he retorts bitterly.

"You knew nothing could be done to save her. You ended her pain," I speak further, again words he desires to hear. "She can forgive you for that."

"She can," he replies softly; the cigarette in his hand raises toward his lips once more, "but would she?"

"Does it truly matter" I ask in turn, "when you cannot even forgive yourself?"

He sighs, then he chuckles hoarsely around the stick. He sees the truth in what I finally say, as much as he understands the motivation behind everything I said before that. He gives no further comment, but I can tell he is relaxing a little now. He is still as burdened as ever, but he is at least ensuring that he does not show the one he looks after exactly how troubled he is. Blood or no blood, he is that child's father now, and that child is the only one he would make the conscious effort for. I turn, a selfish part of me wishing to see this more human side of him a little more clearly while it lasts.

Instead, I see something else. There, not in his physical body, but in his aura. It wasn't this clear before; he never was healthy to begin with, and his current lifestyle only made it more vague, more difficult to tell. Yet in this moment, it becomes more certain of what is there. He senses my gaze and turns around. I am unable to hide the truth from him; too soon he catches on before I can even mask my expression.

"… So that's your answer," he concludes, his tone somber and tired. His sigh releases another noxious cloud of tobacco smoke. "Figures…"

The stick is done. He crushes the smoldering embers before discarding it, and then he starts up a new stick. By now, his eyes have hardened once more, an impenetrable barrier of glass that will let none through.

"He goes with me."

He walks away and I do not follow.

Times flashes forward. Glimpse for a moment at what the near future holds.

His journey will come to its end, and it is here in this same place where I will bid farewell to him one final time. The same pastor who spoke at Tifa's funeral will speak for him, with the same words out of the same passage from his book. There will be fewer here to mourn him – he was always a loner, and most of those who truly cared for him lived as dangerously as he used to, and had long passed on before him. All that will remain is a young girl in a long black coat, her hair the same jet black of her mother's in her youth, and her eyes the blue of her birth father's.

Her adoptive father – the man I know – will take his revenge for her in full. Her mother's killers will lie dead – both of them.

The little girl he left behind will be orphaned for the second time. She will hurt inside, but she is his daughter – too strong and too proud to cry, instead staring silently into space as the ceremony proceeds. Yet I will not stand beside her. I will stand nowhere amongst these people – my place is not with any of them, and none of them will see me hover overhead. Perhaps that is their fortune.

And so, when all is said and done, I will move on, once again, until I find another.

That is the future, a very close future to this present, and it will happen soon.

He probably knew, when he looked at me then, that I saw his death as I had seen Tifa's. He must have known, and still he walked toward it with a gun in his hand and resolve in his stride. Death will come to him as it comes to all humans, but what mattered to him was the manner in which he intended to meet it.

I will miss him, for what little time I knew him. There are so few like him, and as much as it surprises me to know it, I will mourn him when his death does come. I am proud of him, proud of the warrior that was buried within the broken spirit and worn out body.

Clearly, at the end of that hazy near future of blood, steel and gunpowder, I saw Squall Leonhart smile.

_

* * *

I've always wanted to do this, ever since I first got into _Batman_ and what little I could of _Nightwing_. For two years, I planned to do a quasi crossover or a parody where Cloud was a demon and Leon was a slightly corrupt but still honorable officer who provided him with leads to the whereabouts of Sephiroth, a dangerous serial killer that Cloud had a personal vendetta against. The plot from the first draft is a lot different from this one, but it's perhaps for the better - that first one was cheesy enough to attract mice._

_I also had influence from several areas, including _The Twilight Zone_ and certain Chinese shows that came with English subtitles. Plus, the original concept I had about the church, with Father Leon receiving visits from an unearthly presence (Cloud) were blended in - though I may try again with that church thing; still plenty of potential over there._

_Oh well. Another time, another story._

_Thanks for stopping by.  
_


End file.
